Ushuaia or Bust: The Pan-Am 2K Expedition

**JimCT** · 01-19-2013, 05:15 PM

perfect trip!

I can not wait to see the rest of the trip, my wife and i have talked about doing just that trip, have her take a half year sabbatical. Share all the details! thanks, Jim

**Contractor** · 01-19-2013, 06:43 PM

Very cool, keep posting.

**Revtor** · 01-19-2013, 10:03 PM

Please post more, I'd love to read and see all about your journey!!

**tmckeon88** · 01-20-2013, 11:06 AM

Update #2

Some information about our rebuild of the Rover. I won't call it a restoration because we were in a bit of a hurry and could not observe all the niceties, but our intention was to get a galvanized frame, redo the brakes throughout, new clutch, some new wiring and troubleshoot whatever came up. We got involved in the RN restoration discount program which saved us considerable funds, and we bought just about everything through them. (They were also very helpful during the trip, calling to have parts shipped to Alaska and so forth as the need arose.)

Before:

We parked the truck in my dad's garage in June of 1999 and started dismantling. Most stuff comes apart fairly readily. I had done a new transmission and clutch before and numerous brake/hub seal jobs, so I felt like I could tackle it. We did resort to a Sawzall a few times to cut spring bolts and used lots of PB blaster and WD-40, as well as a 6 foot section of pipe that we nicknamed "The Torque Multiplier" or "Senor Torquemada." A few sticky bolts would give a loud squeal when they finally surrendered to Senor Torquemada.

More shots of the tear-down:

We put in new front springs. I had replaced the rears a couple of years before (in a crippling 14-hour session of trying to turn the shackle bolts) so I didn't think they needed to be changed, but it turned out with the additional load the Rover would be carrying, the rear end would settle down pretty far. We were dragging our tail a lot during that trip. Of course, we overpacked, but I can discuss the packing rationale later.

More tear down shots:

My little 2.25L engine has been a real trouper throughout the time I've had it. The previous owner had it rebuilt and the hardened valves for unleaded gas put in, but otherwise it's a 1960 7:1 compression engine with a Weber single barrel carb and an upgraded distributor, the later Lucas type. I've put over 100,000 miles on this engine just since I've owned it (and replaced the speedo in 1996) so it has a lot more than that under its belt. It still starts quickly and runs smoothly even to this day, and I've hardly done more than tune-ups and valve cover gasket replacements. If I could only keep the oil inside it instead of on the driveway!

We replaced the rear door (and last summer I replaced that door yet again - frame rust) and I fooled around over the following year with getting a custom-drilled piece of rear glass that I could mount a wiper motor in, but that glass cracked pretty soon and it just stayed cracked for years until a I gave up on that and put in plain glass and a wiper mounted in the upper frame, above the window. I loves me some clear windows. I also have fussed with rear-window defrosters and never had any luck getting them to work, so right now my rear glass is just plain and I am super cautious on cold rainy days when the windows fog.

The day the truck arrived with the galvanized frame was exciting. I was leery of how to move it but it turned out the truck driver, my dad and I managed to just carry it into the garage on set it against the wall. I should have done more to clear the bolt holes of zinc, but I only learned of that later. I did spray it all over with Ospho, a phosphoric acid solution that bonds with iron to create iron phosphate, an inert rust-resistant shell. Any dings in the galvanizing I hoped to fill with this to stave off corrosion.

We sold the old frame to a kid who actually drove down from Nova Scotia to collect it in a big pick up truck. The frame wasn't in bad shape; lots of oil all over it of course. The transmission cross member was banged up from some ancient off-roading incident before I owned it. He seemed happy to have it, so we got it all loaded up and tied and down and wished him well.

Next up: a few more reassembly notes and maybe some comments on planning to visit several countries and cross borders with an foreign vehicle.

**tmckeon88** · 01-20-2013, 06:36 PM

Update #3.

Some more notes about the rebuild:

We got the truck more or less back together. There were some mishaps, mostly due to my ignorance of electrical issues such as when I burned up several sets of points because the high tension lead from the coil bypassed the coil altogether, so the full battery current was running through the points on the distributor. But once I sorted that out, it actually started up fairly easily after 6 weeks of being torn to pieces.

At that point though, I realized that I hadn't wired the instruments and lights back together properly so I ended up having it towed to a local garage and a mechanic put in a bunch of new wiring and got it more or less running. This took a few weeks; we returned home and I had to go get the truck a few weeks later. This was all the year before the trip so I had anticipated having a long shakedown period.

We repainted the truck (just with a brush) in Rover Bronze Green with Limestone wheels and top. The brush painting is a bit ghetto, but since I don't have too many vanities the appearance of the truck, it worked out fine. (I've brush painted it several times since then.) The previous color was something called "Cameroon Green" which had more of a bluish cast to it, so once we started repainting one part, we had to do the whole thing.

The bulkhead was a bit of a Frankenstein job, which at the time I did out of expediency. I didn't realize until later that bulkheads were hard to come by and tricky to keep in good shape (I'm thinking of the great bulkhead rebuilds you see here sometimes on the forums) so I'm sort of stuck with what I have. I had some pieces of 1/8" aluminum cut and bent to match the two kick panels (which were rusted) and I bolted those in, and also put in the galvanized panels that were there, so I have nice thick kick panels but the overall geometry of the bulkhead isn't quite true anymore. If I do in all again, I'll take some time and trouble to get it restored more properly.

We had some trouble getting the doors to line up and so forth, (they're still not perfect) so there was a lot of fussing and fitting. I eventually managed to get it all bolted back together and over the course of the next months, I more or less got it all working again. We had a oldish Fairey overdrive, freewheeling hubs and 16" wheels, and someone gave us a full set of BF Goodrich All-Terrain ATs (more about those later).

It sill has oil leaks, and the rear axle casing is slowly disintegrating, but at this point we had most of the mechanicals in order. All new brake lines, one new hub, new front springs, some new wheel cylinders, galvanized frame, etc. Most of what we fixed has stayed fixed. It's now twelve years on, so some things, like the brake lines, are in need of replacement again. There were also some odd things, like the new canvas axle stops, which looked great when they went on, but caused unusual problems later on.

So- next post, I'll mention a few things about the stuff we packed, and about preparations such as contacting the State Department for information on traveling through Colombia (their response: don't do it).

Cheers- off to see if the Patriots can secure a place at the Superbowl.

**siii8873** · 01-20-2013, 09:55 PM

We got involved in the RN restoration discount program which saved us considerable funds

What is this?? I've restored a few vehicles and never heard mention of this program???

**Revtor** · 01-20-2013, 10:29 PM

Thanks for the posts Tom, it's a great read!

**RNZack** · 01-21-2013, 12:16 AM

Originally posted by siii8873

We got involved in the RN restoration discount program which saved us considerable funds

What is this?? I've restored a few vehicles and never heard mention of this program???

This is a program we had long ago for frame up restoration customers. Unfortunately it was an accounting nightmare and it became too difficult to continue.

**tmckeon88** · 01-21-2013, 12:04 PM

Whoops, guess I made a bit of a faux pas there. The restoration discount gave something like 20% off purchases following a frame purchase for a certain number of months or whatever. Too bad it's discontinued, but on the other hand in those days there were very few Proline parts available. Nowadays prices seem easier to afford on many items.

Another update later today-

**Revtor** · 01-21-2013, 08:02 PM

I like that front bumper you got Tom, was it on the truck when you got it?

**tmckeon88** · 01-22-2013, 12:55 PM

Yes, it was- then when it finally rusted out I got a galvanized replacement through DAP Enterprises, but unfortunately it is no longer available. I think it's set at a bad height, like trap-a-toddler-under-the-car height, so it's not sold in the US. I'd still have the galvanized one except we had a little accident a couple of years ago and bent it, so I'm back to the stock bumper now.

We tried to have that galvanized bull bar straightened at a local metal fab shop, but after trying to bend it by lowering a bulldozer blade onto it (and failing) we reckoned it was not fixable. A shame.

Update: Trip planning.

I wanted to mention something about the vehicle carnet, which is like a passport for the car, which greatly facilitates passing through border checkpoints. It's a document that has several copies of all the relevant info about the car, and also represents the fact that you have set aside a bond for the full value of the vehicle so that you can show that you don't intend to sell or dump the car in a foreign country. Especially important in Central/South America where you might have people trying import used American cars in order to sell them sort of in a black market sense in a foreign country. Information about it is available through the Canadian Automobile Association (CAA). Apparently the AAA doesn't arrange them, or at least they didn't in those days. Very helpful document, although it was a pain to have set the cash aside for that. I did half in cash, half on my credit card. (We had to have a RN appraisal of the vehicle done to have a specific figure to give them.)

Other plans: We contacted the US State department for tourist updates on all the countries we were visiting, as well as the embassies/consulates for most of them. Usually we would get back some helpful maps and brochures from various countries. The state department sent us a big "No way" concerning Colombia, where kidnappings and other problems were rampant, especially for an obviously foreign vehicle like ours, so we decided to skip Colombia altogether. There's no road route from Panama into Colombia anyway (see information about the 1970s Darien Gap Expedition - Land Rovers and Range Rovers trying to slash through the jungle) so we planned to have the truck container shipped from Panama to Ecuador. We would fly, and meet the truck in Guayaquil, Ecuador, and continue from there.

Packing: Basically we wanted to cover the bases of being able to camp, hike and be comfortable. The timing was such that it would be summer or spring much of the time. We didn't bring any dress clothes (I might have packed a tie). We didn't have a rooftop tent (they don't seem to make sense to me, unless there's a major snake/scorpion issue or something; you lose your roof rack space) but just our usual backpacking rig. The camping stuff ended up taking most of the roof rack space because it's isn't very heavy and you don't need except at most once a day. So we had tent, tarp, backpacks, sleeping bags, pads, field kitchen stuff, MSR stove and fuel. I'm comparatively minimalist when it comes to camping (think 7 lb tent rather than 3-room screen house) so we had a fairly compact camping rig. I brought a 5-gallon water jerry can (plastic), a water filter (slow, but I'm glad we had it), iodine tablets, and a few recipes. As far as food goes, we brought what we might have on any camping trip. I imagine people on the forum here already know what they like to do for camping and eating outdoors, so I won't say too much about it. Except maybe for the Fry-Bake pan- this is a heavy aluminum pan that can act as a Dutch oven as well as a fry pan. If you're not backpacking it's very handy- we baked and sauted in it. Good for canoe and car camping too, and comes in two sizes.

Having said all that, we didn't camp as much as I imagined we would. We did more in Canada and the US where the sites were plentiful and clean, much less so once we entered Mexico. Lodgings were comparatively cheap after that anyway, and I am soft enough to enjoy a shower and a real bed after being deafened and dust covered for 4 - 5 hours. I did learn a few things about cooking and eating on the road.

Next Update: spare parts and tools.

**tmckeon88** · 01-23-2013, 08:26 AM

Update: Some camping pictures. We generally were car camping of course so we could carry whatever food we wanted. We had a small cooler (as I recall) but of course we did not always have ice for it, etc., but it was handy. We usually pitched our tarp over the cooking area.

These are mostly sites in Canada and Alaska. We had a few memorable episodes with the voracious mosquito populations you sometimes encounter up north- in one primitive provincial campsite in British Columbia we we warmed by the worst mosquitoes I have ever seen and after hastily cooking something and eating we jumped into the tent at about 6:00. You could then hear the general hum of thousands of mosquitoes lighting on the tent. It made me think of the early travelers and Indians in these areas, for whom this was a daily fact of life.

Because we sort of gave up on camping much in Mexico and Central America, I think the single can of Coleman fuel we brought lasted us the whole time. (It would swell and contract interestingly as we went up and down in altitude.) The MSR Whisperlite stove we were using is a solid piece of equipment- they used to be temperamental but I have been very pleased with ours. i've used it from probably 15 years without a hitch and with very little maintenance.

We liked making tortillas in camp because it's quick and easy and seems more homemade than boiling up dried soups and so forth. They are easy; mostly just flour, salt, water and a little baking powder, then rolled out using a water bottle as a roller and cooked quickly on a dry pan. The only drawback was having unmarked bags of white powders (flour, etc.) when our car was repeatedly searched in Mexico. We emerged from that safely though.

Camping recommendations: Thunder Bay area of Lake Superior, anywhere in British Columbia, which is beautiful, Oregon and California. BC really stands out in my memory as being spectacular everywhere you went. We preferred national forest and provincial parks to private campgrounds, because you can get further from the RV crowd that way. I like to have it quiet and private when I'm camping, maybe from my backpacking experience where you are usually far from crowds.

Next time I'll get into the actual travel pictures. Sorry if I don't have tons of Rover pix in this; there are some here and there but much of the time we were just driving on roads so nothing exciting there. There are some breakdown/repair stories which I will relate. Spoiler alert:

Antarctic ocean in Ushuaia (we made it):

**smukai** · 01-23-2013, 11:19 AM

Enjoying this thread and dreaming.

Thanks for the continual posts!

**tmckeon88** · 01-23-2013, 11:58 AM

Update: Crossing Canada 1

We went through NH, VT, NY and into Canada above the Great Lakes. We stayed with friends and camped at Thunder Bay on Lake Superior (I think). Roads of course all good- we were planning to get on the Alcan highway eventually. Notably in the Great Lakes area we came upon a tractor-trailer carrying orange juice that had just overturned on an incline. The driver & passenger were shaken up but not hurt too bad; we got out our big first aid box and dabbed some cuts and bruises but nothing major. We waited for an ambulance and then were on our way.

It probably bears noting that we had no phone with us, or computer. We had to occasionally make calls but there are plenty of phones in the world so that was no problem. Once in a while we had to prevail upon a passerby to make a call for us but generally it was not an issue.

Starting the Alaska highway in Dawson, BC.

I don't have a lot of strong memories of crossing Canada- it was nice, friendly people and so forth, but it was about two weeks of sameness and low-quality coffee. The great plains area of the US extends up into the Canadian prairies so there long stretches of uninterrupted flat land. We were also sort of fighting the westerly headwinds much of the time so we were sometimes slowed to about 45 miles an hour ,despite the overdrive. We would try to get in the baffles of big trucks sometimes to travel in their slipstream, but that was sort of dangerous. Mechanical problems: just my perennial weak brakes, that always take a couple of pumps no matter how much adjusting I did. (I solved this problem many years later, just last summer in fact, and for the first time I have decent brakes. It turned out that my right front backing plate had a lower pin broken loose, so the shoes were sort of floating on a moving pin, so you could never fully adjust to take up the slack in the system. I found a replacement and put that in, along with new drums and pads, and a little machining later - presto, proper brakes. I can't believe I lived with it for 15 years.)

We crossed into BC and got onto the real Alaska highway which is mostly gravel out that way, although they were in the process of paving it and I imagine it's all done now. It was built originally during WWII to allow military materiel to be moved more quickly to Alaska in case of a Japanese attack on that territory. It has been continually upgraded. Traveling in some traffic there was the first time I had really encountered a bad dust problem. We ended up closing all the windows despite the summer weather, then trying to open them all to create a draft to keep the dust out, etc. Not successful. It was here too we got hit with a flying piece of gravel that put a small hole in our radiator, and we learned by it is all the trucks have fine screens in front of their radiators on these gravel highways. I got a section of screen at a hardware store and wired it to the back of my grill to keep stones out, but too late. (It's still there, in fact.) Because of this gradual seeping of coolant, we spent several days topping it up every morning and trying all manner of tricks such as pouring pepper into the radiator to create sort of a plug and also using some of that aluminized power that purports to do the same thing. None of it entirely successful. One thing I find noteworthy is that the Rover will continue running even if some systems are not working 100%. In a modern car, if one module or sensor goes, sometimes the whole thing can be immobilized. (On the other hand, no A/C in the Rover!)

We got into Alaska and made our way to Fairbanks fairly uneventfully.

Next up: Alaska and the Dalton Highway.

Ushuaia or Bust: The Pan-Am 2K Expedition

Ushuaia or Bust: The Pan-Am 2K Expedition

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